Fondness and Apples
by Broccoli-xxxx
Summary: Two weary souls, forever holding hands. Harry and Ron, slash. A little bit angsty in parts. Do read, and review when you've finished.


_A/N: Well, this is slash, and it's rated T for a naughty word. A pairing of Harry and Ron, which I believe has always been there, you just need to look. I do not own anything to do with the musical Sweeney Todd (movie version) or Harry Potter, for that matter. Enjoy.

* * *

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Fondness and Apples

He sometimes wonders if he's going mad. His own sister has what he cannot have and it really does matter to him.

More than it should, possibly.

No, not possibly, _definitely_; you do _not_ fall in love with your best friend. It's just a no-go – even if your best friend is Harry Potter. _Even if he's really something special._

Evergreen eyes – les yeux verts.

Hair black as the robes of felled Death Eaters – les cheveux noirs.

Harry's looks have a kind of unique poetry to their make up, and he can't help but use the little French he's learnt, with _les filles francaises_ now in the Weasley clan.

War has battered his body and numbed his mind with loss and suffering but his heart still dances for the Boy-Who-Lived.

* * *

"You're not gay if it's just Harry," Hermione reminds him, walking at his side, her petite (but strong, Ron reminds himself) face drowning in her curly hair, thin wrists peeking out from her purple shirt.

They've decided to see a Muggle horror film, just him and her – Sweeney Todd, with some Muggle bloke called Johnny Dopp or Dapp in it, with whom Hermione is smitten.

"I mean, I'm not gay, but I love Luna. Really, it's just her. She's the only one."

They get their tickets and take their seats as the lights dim. _It's a musical_, he reminds himself with a sigh. _Oh, spare me_.

And yet, as he watched, he became entranced by this tale of revenge, love, and treachery. It was almost like their lives in the past, minus wands and tattoos and scars shaped like lightning.

"What did you think, Ron?" Suddenly the lights are up and Ron stares blankly at the people leaving the theatre. He remembers to breathe and look neutral as he responds.

"Er, it was…alright, I guess."

* * *

He comes to the conclusion he is Harry's Mrs. Lovett.

The tortured male, hungry for revenge (Harry is somewhat sated now, and he's recovering, but the wound is still raw, rubbed with the salt of so many deaths), kept sane by the disturbed sidekick, who dotes on him from the sidelines. _Disturbed, that's me_, he thinks.

_Why don't you see me?_

Harry asks him why they don't talk so often anymore, his voice pained and thick with tiredness. He sounds so old it makes Ron want to weep.

Ron's brain goes through a whole list of why they shouldn't talk – _thinking the mind the brain the brains wrapping round him tighter tighter invading his thoughts with memories not his own, the baby-headed Death Eater eternally shifting through Time (babyMANbabyMAN) Ginny and Luna flying into walls face down on the floor like so many fallen rag dolls Sirius in a graceful arc, gymnast's pose as he floats beyond that whispering veil that speaks in the wind, Horcruxes all over the world – their world – must destroy KILL THE SNAKE Voldemort's dead but so are Snape, Colin, Remus, Tonks, and so many more –_

"I dunno, mate. Things've just been a bit mental lately."

Ron feels like saying Harry's been off with Ginny, being in love, but finds his own sister's name stings like acid on his tongue. He can't quite spit it out, because the fire she ignites in Harry is the Boy-Who-Lived's own red-hot sparkling candle, burning through the cursed darkness that surrounds their saviour's heart. He can't bring himself to tear that away with the green monster clawing at every fibre of his being.

_I burn brighter than her. I always have. My life is alight for you, just like our comrade's bodies when those sickos burned them like dry kindling. They sacrificed their lives 'for the greater good' – is that greater good just you and Ginny? I know I would've laid my life down just as easily for you. Please, just take me out of this torment of a world I live in where you're everywhere and nowhere._

_God, I love him._

"Always had a fondness for you, I did…" he mouths at Harry's retreating back. "Silver's good enough for me."

He walks away, and the sun sets on Ron as a single tear traces its moonlit path down both boys' faces. Harry turns, but Ron has already Disapparated without a sound.

_Where have you gone?

* * *

_

He's a fool.

They really ought to call him the Fool-Who-Lived for fucking up his life so badly. He shouldn't have gotten together with Ginny – he should have told her it wasn't _her_ he wanted.

But the red hair is hereditary and oh-so similar, and if he closes his eyes he can pretend it's the youngest Weasley _boy_ he's kissing, and the red hair his hands are twined in is shorter and messier.

Some drink, do drugs, sleep with lots of different women – _or men_, he thinks – to dull the pain in their hearts, but the wizarding world's saviour, well…_he denies_.

For a while he cut off all contact with everyone. It helped at first, but every Monday, in the morning, he'd open his door to find an apple pie nestled next to his newspaper on the doorstep of Grimmauld Place.

Now that all the curses and jinxes had been undone, it was quite homely, and Harry ate apple pie for breakfast every day, for days on end. It became routine, and an _addiction_.

At first he presumed it was Ginny – every Monday, she left a bunch of home-picked flowers for his dining table. It made sense that it would be her, but he left the matter, simply inviting her into his life once more.

But one day, the pies dropped into mind; it had been weeks since one had been delivered - he could trace it back to when Ginny had started actually coming into his house.

"Ginny, do you know how to make apple pie?"

"No…I've got hot hands, pastry doesn't work with me. It takes cold hands, really."

He denied this in his head. Quality of pastry shouldn't depend on whether your hands are hot or cold, it's just a skill you can acquire. Ginny's hot hands crept under his shirt and traced every scar that laced his body – her hands are too soft, he thinks, there's not enough rough calluses there – and he denied that it wasn't her. Biting his lips, he thought, _it was definitely her_.

* * *

Ginny and Harry had an argument.

He couldn't really remember what it was about – but he could remember the pies returning.

Again, he would eat the pies for breakfast every week, and a smile was set on his face as he went about his quiet day to day life.

Ron came round a few times, usually on Wednesdays – the rest of the time he was busy with helping Luna and Hermione plan and pack for their travels, and with rebuilding Hogwarts. McGonagall arranges shifts of people to help, and Rona and Harry are on different shifts – though both had Wednesdays free.

They spoke easily, about Quidditch and life before the war and just what they would do now they'd saved the world. Harry stole glances at his red-headed best friend, denying it to be anything more than a craving for a familiar face.

As Ron left, Harry hugged him, and smelt something on his clothes.

Apple.

* * *

He got back together with Ginny, and the pies stopped. He continued to dream that Ginny was taller, broader, rougher like a leaf tossed by the wind, but denied it to be about Ron.

He wonders why Ron's stopped coming round on Wednesdays, but distracts himself with the red-haired maiden who dotes on him night and day.

He soon wonders what Molly would think of him using her daughter like that.

_I don't want to find out.

* * *

_

Harry broke up with her, eventually.

It was difficult, and the snow fell thick on the first winter after the war. He kept himself to himself, helping at Hogwarts but otherwise remaining in the heavy sleep of heroes after their fighting had ceased.

The pies returned, and he soon tried to figure out who it was. Harry decided that he would give up denial, throw it out of his heart and face things.

_He loved Ron_. He probably always had… Ron, his best friend, bedraggled, shambolic Ron, who had (almost) always been there.

The footprints up to his door were large enough to be Ron. _It had to be him._

They stared at each other.

"Ron."

"Harry."

The smaller boy walked to his best friend and embraced him.

"I've missed you."

"Um…you, too."

Harry smiled, and then grasped Ron's cold hands.

"Do you make pastry? I've heard it takes cold hands."

Ron gave a small moan of relief and pressed his lips to Harry's, as the smaller melted into his arms.

"Always had a fondness for you, I did," Harry softly murmurs into Ron's mouth.

It all seems so natural. They hold hands and it feels like they've done it for the whole of their lives - two weary souls, forever holding hands. It's not quite love like in a fairytale, but it's enough to make Ron _believe_ in them again.

His rough hands are cold and Harry's bitten lips taste of apples.

* * *

_A/N: Ack. Ack ack ack. I'm so glad I finished that, the ending was giving me grief – you know when you just can't find the words? Please review, my dear people, I know you're all good at it. :)_


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